The ultimate goal, in any session ofHunt: Showdown 1896, is to grab the bounty and extract with it. Whether or not that involves you actually killing the bounty or simply killing the Hunters who did the work themselves is up to you. But at some point or another, you’re going to come face to face with the fiercest monsters Hunt has to offer.
Not all of these monsters are equal, and some are going to be wildly easier to fight than others. Some of this is going to depend on the situation; some buildings lend themselves to easier fights than others, and the involvement of other Hunters dramatically changes how it plays out.
Monsters on this list are ranked in terms of their entire situation, from the monster itself to the situation you’re probably going to be fighting them in.
6Spider
The Spider is almost certainly the easiest of these creatures to fight. While the Spider is very fast and can get some quick hits in on you, it doesn’t do any type of damage that damages you beyond the initial impact. It poisons you, and that does prevent you from healing while the effect lasts, but juking the Spider long enough is going to allow you to get that heal off, which isn’t too hard to do.
There are certain buildings where you can entirely impede the Spider’s movement as well. Buildings with low ceilings that the Spider crawls on can be blocked by Hunters, so you can effectively trap it in and beat it to death. None of this is to say that the Spider is going to be a great time to fight; it is truly and magnificently horrifying, but facing the Spider is usually easier than facing the other bounty monsters.
5Hellborn
The Hellborn is a wild target, and that would usually make it one of the more difficult targets to face because wild targets are fought out in the open. It is extremely easy to get jumped by an enemy team when fighting out in the open, especially if that fight lasts for any real amount of time.
But, the Hellborn can be dealt with rather quickly. It can do some significant damage, and his damage is going to burn you, which is a problem. The Hellborn also has a surprising amount of mobility, closing the gap from it to you in what is usually an upsettingly short amount of time. But it can be killed very fast for a bounty target, and most importantly, it does not have a banishing phase. That means the instant it’s dead, you may pick up the bounty and get to an extract.
4Assassin
The Assassin usually takes a little bit longer to kill than it feels like it should because of its ability to move unimpeded by Hunters and become mostly immune to damage. Its attacks cause bleed, and a situation can go from bad to unsalvageable quickly when you start losing all of your blood. But, it’s a very easy target to stagger, dodge, and otherwise buy yourself time to recover from.
It does have some abilities that make it more difficult than the Spider, namely the Assassin’s ability to split into multiple clones of itself or stick to walls and throw blades at you from there. But by and large, it can be taken down without too much worry as long as you keep on top of that bleed.
3Scrapbeak
Scrapbeak might be the most unpredictable monster on this list, and because of that, it can be a little bit difficult to rank. Like the Assassin, Scrapbeak can easily cause bleed, forcing you to take time to recover rather than continue fighting. It’s got a sack on its back full of sharp objects, and the things it pulls out of that sack can cause some real issues.
The biggest issue when fighting Scrapbeak is the Concertina Wire that it can toss out. This Concertina Wire can impede certain lanes in the building and quickly get you stuck somewhere while Scrapbeak beats you to death. But, as long as you keep yourself in a position to have multiple ways to escape, Scrapbeak is manageable.
Scrapbeak can drop items from their sack; keep an eye on the ground for useful things during and after the fight.
2Butcher
The only reason the Butcher takes this spot over Scrapbeak or the Assassin is because of its ability to cause burn. you’re able to heal health that bled away, but the same can’t be said for health that’s burned away. It’s significantly easier to keep yourself from getting hit by the Butcher, but his hits often end up being more impactful because of that burn.
But, in a fight where you position yourself well and keep yourself from getting hit in foolish ways, the Butcher can be dealt with. It can’t move with the speed of the Assassin or the Spider and is much more predictable than Scrapbeak, so don’t make any mistakes, and you should be all right. Make a mistake, and The Butcher is going to punish you more severely than the others.
1Rotjaw
Rotjaw itself isn’t too big of an issue. It does have an ability to get some nearly unavoidable hits in, and in terms of surprise factor, is one of the more upsetting monsters to come up against. Once Rotjaw gets underwater and starts moving around unpredictably, it can be difficult to get damage in on it quickly, especially without getting pulled into the water by the beast itself. These attacks from Rotjaw can also keep you from doing damage while they’re happening, further drawing out the fight.
Rotjaw is particularly weak to poison damage, so while you can’t know you’re about to fight Rotjaw beforehand, keep it in mind during the fight.
But the real problem with Rotjaw is the fact that it’s out in the open. Fighting Rotjaw out in the swamp like you’re forced to leads to getting ambushed by enemy Hunters fairly often. If Rotjaw keeps getting itself underwater, it can take quite a while to kill, and every second that happens, any noise you make has a greater and greater chance of attracting unwanted attention.
On top of this, Rotjaw needs banished, and even though it banishes slightly quicker than other bounty targets, that’s time spent out in the open with enemy Hunters almost certainly on the way. There’s no more difficult fight in Hunt than against other Hunters, and that right there is what makesRotjaw the most difficult bounty targetto fight and extract with.
